The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/20734
R.o.B.S. A. EUGENE, Ore. _ A Springfield man was shouted out of a community Thanksgiving dinner hosted by the Eugene Growers’ Market because his food wasn’t up to snuff. Chris Jensen saw a flier for the dinner in a local health-food store and decided to sign up. The 26-year-old University of Oregon graduate student, a native of Minnesota, said he is new to the area and didn’t have plans for the holiday. “I thought it would be a good way to meet people,” Jensen said by phone on Monday. Jensen said he didn’t realize the dinner was meant to be limited only to local food grown in and around the Willamette Valley. His dish of candied yams _ a family recipe _ was not well-received by the local foodies at the gathering. “They shouted me right out the door,” Jensen said. “It was humiliating.” Crystal McEvoy, one of the organizers of the dinner, admitted that things “got a little out of hand.” McEvoy said the dinner, a tradition that began a few years earlier, had evolved into a spirited competition among participants to find locally sourced ingredients for traditional Thanksgiving fare. “It’s all in good fun, but people get a little competitive about it,” McEvoy said on Tuesday from her home in the South Hills of Eugene. B. It’s hard to tell what’s true these days. Take a gander below, and guess if A. and B. are Real or B.S. (Answers at the bottom of the page.) No warm welcome for man at Thanksgiving According to Jensen, he was running late on turkey day because of car trouble and arrived at the Unitarian Universalist Church about an hour after the scheduled start of the dinner. “By that time, everyone was pretty drunk,” McEvoy acknowledged. Jensen said the initial introductions went smoothly, but when he pulled the tin foil off his dish, “I heard gasps,” Jensen said. McEvoy agreed that the reaction was “not favorable.” “You have people here who have been working for weeks to find local cranberries, or ingredients for their grandmother’s oyster stuffing. And this guy walks in with marsh- mallows,” McEvoy said. “A few people took exception to that.” McEvoy insisted that the boos and jeers that followed were meant “in good fun,” but Jensen said he was shaken by it, and felt he had to leave. “Thanksgiving is supposed to be about people coming together and sharing,” Jensen said. “This was just ridiculous.” McEvoy said the issue would be discussed at the cooperative’s next meeting. “I think we can do a better job of being welcoming to new faces,” McEvoy said. “Even if they come bearing high-fructose corn syrup, we should be able to welcome them to our table.” Robbery foiled by well-flung pastry DEMING, N.M. _ Robbers, beware of clerks wielding pastries. Police in Deming, N.M., said a clerk foiled a robbery last week when she hit the culprit on the back of the head with a package of empanadas, a type of Latin American pastry. Police say the masked man didn’t say a word when he grabbed the cash register at Amigo’s Mexican Food and tried to flee. Deming police Capt. Brandon Gigante said the man dropped the register when the clerk threw the pastries and hit him. Barbara Orquiz, who owns Amigo’s with her husband, Arnold, said the cash register’s cord got caught when the man tried to take it. The clerk saw him grab it, screamed and got him with the empanadas. Orquiz said the man was covering his head as he ran away. Dec. 2, 2010 O-Town Scene 23 A. is B.S., by Emily Popek; B. is real.